The Knife of Socrates
by Sinister Papaya Fondue
Summary: Marooned in Azkaban, Lucius Malfoy has nothing to do but think. And thinking can be dangerous...


A man can go mad in a prison cell.

I didn't think I would be here long; no, the tide was turning, along with the Dementors, and regular aurors could not keep us in line like the dark sentinels that floated through the corridors inspiring fear and misery. Each week I counted fewer of the hooded demons. And in their absence, I thought there would be news, devious whispers of what was happening out there. But each day there was only the stony, sepulchral silence of Azkaban.

I tried to occupy my mind, but found it distressingly empty. I could not recall poems to recite, pieces of music to hum, stories to retell myself – I could only think of the mission and my failure. Children, mere children, had confounded me.

The prophecy was destroyed. Now the only ones who knew it in full were, presumably, Dumbledore, Potter and the unknown seer who had made it. Lord Voldemort heard it only once, years ago, and we suspected that the information received on that night was incomplete. While I have no doubt that he remembers every word, he wanted the prophecy in full. It was my mission to get it, and I failed spectacularly.

It was this line of thought that eventually led me to ruminations about fate. Would this chain of events have happened if there had been no prophecy? Certainly Voldemort would still exist, and his ideals, but this mess with Potter – would the Dark Lord ever have been disembodied, his followers scattered and his vision forced into unwilling dormancy? Would he be so desperate to destroy the boy, the boy he himself had chosen to be his nemesis?

And what, I began to ask myself, what would happen if he really succeeded in killing Harry Potter? Powerful magic had kept the boy alive, and I cannot believe that a powerful upheaval in magic would not accompany his death – if he could even be killed. I was beginning to have my doubts.

And where was I, in all this? Where did my fate come in? Did I believe in fate? I had all the time in the world to consider it. And it was a strange kind of torture to do so, because Slytherins do not like to think about anything unless it will eventually result in some kind of personal gain. It made us strong and weak, altogether, because while we could foresee and manipulate some circumstances, it made us blind to others. Like imprisonment in Azkaban, for instance – clearly not a personal gain. My inability to recall anything outside my goals as a Death Eater, while an admirable characteristic in a follower, was doing little to benefit me.

Malfoys were not followers. _I_ was not a follower. Second-in-command gave me some leadership but in the end I was still a peon, there to conquer or topple for my Lord. I had gone willingly to my own demise. Beliefs were important but not so important that they should cloud judgment; that was my first mistake. The plan had seemed so foolproof. Potter would do almost anything for Sirius Black, his godfather and one of the only remaining links to his parents' past. He was just a foolish child, easily manipulated. He would turn to dust in the Dark Lord's hands.

I underestimated him – mistake number two. He was the adversary of the most formidable wizard on Earth for a reason; luck was on his side and his control of magic was confident and instinctual. Harry Potter did not get scared. The only things that scared him were within himself. Even when he is threatened with pain, death, guilt – he doesn't fear them, he rages with the injustice of them. It is a mark of an older and stronger man. It is also something he shares with the Dark Lord, only the Dark Lord doesn't care about injustice, never feels guilt, and hasn't taken a good hard look at his psyche in decades. That's assuming he has one.

I also lost sight of the fact that Voldemort is not an indulging or forgiving master. This didn't matter until now. I never failed him, not once. On a whole I was not used to failing. Things were never denied to me. If there were barriers I broke them down slowly and carefully and got what I wanted. This bred overconfidence and arrogance; with those come complacency and lack of planning. Now that I think about it, it really was atrocious that I had no 'plan b', as they say. It was disgraceful. Slytherins always have a backup plan or ten.

So those three things landed me here in this stinking jail cell. Belief converted from a guiding principal to an accepted fact – bad. Underestimating one's enemy – dreadful and stupid. Forgetting that you were not immune to your master's cruelty – well, maybe that was the worst mistake of all.

I can only hope that his anger will run its course or he will realize how much he needs me. I know that he needs me. This is not necessarily in my favor; he doesn't like to need anyone. I understand that. Yet I am the sanest of the insane in his flock. I am heartless but not cruel; there is a difference. But above all I am careful. At least…I was.

I had a life, once. Perhaps not the most honest life, or the most moral, but a life nonetheless. I had a wife that I loved. I had a child who I treasured, in my own strange, cumbersome way. I was handicapped as a father, in a sense, because my only example had taught me little besides how to inspire obedience through fear and pain. I knew that I did not want to raise Draco that way, but I was aware of little else and was too proud to ask. So I stayed distant, reserved – but I did love him. I did and I do.

I wonder what he is doing now. He is too young and has none of my younger self's violent rage. Voldemort gave me a place to direct it, other than at the obvious. Although, by the time I was 20, the original source of that rage was dead. I have not killed since, and that is something that few people know. Lesser people can deal with such paltry matters. I exist for plotting, implementing, persuading, and extracting. I could make the Pope an atheist if I wanted to. In spite of this I know it is there, that capacity for unspeakable sadism, but I loathe myself when I use it.

I can't claim that I haven't. It boils over in me sometimes and I _need_ to cause hurt. It starts in my chest, my breath coming faster, my heart pounding and palpitating, and my mind begins to race. I feel like a caged animal. I sometimes wonder what a psychotherapist would do with me, but I could never see one; it would ruin my image. Besides, there is no cure for madness, occasional or otherwise, and I have read enough books on the subject to know that it is about control. All I can do is exorcise it as quickly as possible so that I don't end up hurting someone that is actually important to me. Like Narcissa or Draco…

Draco is nothing like me. I know he can adapt, but I fear for him nonetheless. I taught him what I could. He absorbed the lessons but I could always tell that he didn't believe he'd ever have to use them. I hope to whatever powers are out there that he has had the sense to use them now. Voldemort will seek to replace me, as he did with my father. Draco won't refuse him.

So where to go from here? That's assuming I ever get out of here. I know the Dark Lord is leaving me to rot for now. He is hoping that my humiliation and anger at failing him will forge me into a homicidal maniac, like Bellatrix. That will never happen. Mania dictates a lack of control. There is nothing I hate more than being out of control.

What does it say about things when I can analyze the man I would have died for a few months ago so dispassionately? Well, he is not the one in here reliving his worst memories twelve times a day. He does not feel the dirt or the shame of the unclean, he does not feel the bite of the fleas and the itch of the lice, and most certainly he does not feel the strain of being away from his family and not knowing what is happening out in the world. He has no family and he cares for no one. That will never be a cause of distraction for him.

Where is all this questioning taking me, anyhow? I am butchering my choices with the knife of Socrates. I am dissecting myself but most of all I am dissecting him. The Dark Lord, He Who Shall Not Be Named, Voldemort, Tom Marvolo Riddle – I am slicing him apart and trying to make sense of what I find.

The trick is that there is nothing inside him except a wealth of vengeful dogma. The Gospel According to Voldemort, you could call it. A holy book to some, but was it to me? There were a hundred gospels and everyone believed whatsoever they chose. Would I choose the same thing twice, especially when the first go round resulted in this?

My thoughts are interrupted and I squeeze my eyes shut in pain. The dementors are passing. Images flash in my brain. I have seen them so many times that they should have lost their meaning. The fact that they don't speaks to how powerful they are. I curl up in the corner of the cell and ride them out.

When it is over I am in a cold sweat. Only four more times today. I only have to do this four more times and then I can sleep. I try to grope onto anything but the horrible hopelessness that invades me. Anything, a few notes of music, an image of my wife or son, anything happy or neutral or even boring…

My mind seizes onto a half-remembered verse and holds on.

_Like one that on a lonesome road  
Doth walk in fear and dread,  
And having once turned round walks on,  
And turns no more his head;  
Because he knows a frightful fiend  
Doth close behind him tread._

Yes. Yes…my breathing calms and I begin to claw my way back to composure. I am able to conjure Narcissa's face, her divine bone structure, the perfect silk of her hair. In a few more breaths I am able to remember Draco as I last saw him. It was Christmas. His mother gave him too much eggnog. He was asleep in the sitting room, the fathomless sleep of the drunk, and he was perfectly captured between childhood and adulthood.

I have no doubt that whatever remained of his innocence is now gone. I bite my lip – hard. I taste blood. It's one thing for me to do this to myself, to make choices that land me in this misery, but to do it to my son…

The fit comes faster than it ever has before. My chest heaves, my heart explodes, my head screams with chaotic entreaties…but there is nothing and no one here for me to hurt and I know better than to hurt myself. My palms are on the dirty floor. The devil is in me…

I can barely look up when someone enters my cell.

"Sit up, Malfoy!" the auror barks.

I struggle to comprehend through the clouds of crazed thoughts in my head. Up…I manage to rise to my knees. My hands flex and relax. He is here to give me my weekly cleaning. I am usually grateful for it. Today I want to rip his eyes from his skull.

For once the voice of reason intrudes upon my fit. _That won't help anything, Lucius_, it says. _You will never get out of here. You will rot._

"Scourgify."

I feel the familiar tingling as the spell does its work. I cling ruthlessly to the sensation. It seems to overwhelm the wild panic for a brief minute. I do not attack the auror. He is gone, unaware that Death just stopped beside him – and then, hesitating, moved on.

For the next two hours I lay there. I drag my nails along the now-clean skin of my arms until it is red and mildly painful. The sensory input and the repetition focus me. Still, if I don't stop feeling like this soon I just might lose my mind. I suppose that the feeling of being a caged animal is amplified because I am actually caged.

But gradually my frantic heartbeat slows and my breathing settles into a gentler pattern. My thoughts find order again. They find order in nothingness; my head is blank. I close my eyes and breathe. _Nihilo._ Nothing.

I tense. It has been a long time and the dementors are passing by again. The assault begins but something new happens. I can _see_ the poem in my head, the long verses cascading over parchment, though I can't grasp the words until the visions have passed.

_I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,  
Who now doth crazy go,  
Laughed loud and long, and all the while  
His eyes went to and fro.  
'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,  
The Devil knows how to row.'_

Oh yes. Yes he does. But now I do, too. I know how to row against the black current of Azkaban and of my own crippled mind. And as long as I can hold onto the faces of my wife and son, I will never stop rowing.

* * *

The days drift into weeks and the weeks into months and the months into a long year. It is summer because it is not cold and the stone walls can't deny the sea air. I haven't had one of my sadistic fits in ages. I've remembered entire poems, stories, symphonies…and written thirty-six sonnets, four haikus, eighteen pieces of music and six novels in my head. I can hum fragments of songs as the dementors pass and keep a small part of my mind in the real world. Each night I trace the planes of my loved ones' faces with my eyes closed. It seems horribly sentimental, but sentimentality is a course I'm willing to take if it keeps me sane. There are worse things for a man to be guilty of.

A shadow falls across my floor and I look up. It is too early for the auror and his cleansing charm. Yes, this is no auror. I stand up and face him, knowing that this is either death or deliverance.

"Dumbledore is dead and the Ministry has fallen."

I knew about Dumbledore. I had been beaten within an inch of my life on that particular day. It was an angry auror whose face I never saw, and he would have kept going until my brains were splattered across the floor if not for another auror. It was the one I nearly killed in the process of defeating those episodes of bloodlust so long ago.

"Stop or you'll kill him," he said. "It's not like he's the one who did it."

The fists stopped and I lay bleeding in their absence for a minute. The faceless auror growled, "They say his son was involved."

"Then it ought to be punishment enough, him knowing that we'll catch his son and he'll get the Kiss," the first returned. They left me alone.

Oh, that was a test for my tortured mind, but rationality won. If Draco had killed Dumbledore, he would be practically deified in the Dark Lord's eyes. The Dark Lord would never allow him to be captured. He would keep Draco close, not wanting to risk one of his precious few that could actually get things done. I know my son is still alive, because if he wasn't those aurors would have come back to gloat.

In the present the Death Eater holds out a hand. My wand…An undeniable ache propels me. I take it reflexively and the familiar sensation of panic invades. He will think it is exhilaration so I don't try to hide it. Half of it is; I will see my wife and my son. I will sleep in a proper bed and not have to fortify my consciousness with anything I can muster a dozen times a day.

I retreat to that comfortable nothingness. That black void in the deep regions of my brain…I find it, but not easily. No, I will not have to deal with the burdens of Azkaban anymore, but now I have to deal with an entirely different monster.

Now I have to make a choice.

My mind, conditioned to do so in times of stress, generates a haiku.

_As I tread water_

_In the purple sea of doubt_

_My legs are cramping._

I move behind the Death Eater, slipping through dark hallways. There are very few dementors now. Those that still roam the corridors pay us no mind. I am walking out of Azkaban, then flying above the tranquil midnight blue ocean, fragrant wind assaulting me.

But as I follow him, remembering my ruminations about not being a follower, I know that I must tread water still. I must tread water until I know what is on the shore. Then…and only then, can I choose to swim or drown.

* * *

Author's note: The verses in this fic are from 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It's a good read, check it out sometime. :) The haiku was written by yours truly. Hope you enjoyed! 


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